Free Monday the Rabbi Took Off by Harry Kemelman

get a car and we get a couple of girls and we drive to a place that one of my relatives has for a couple of days, a weekend. I’ll guarantee you a good time.”
    “Yeah? How about having me meet some right now?”
    “You mean tonight?”
    “No, not tonight, but you know… Why do we have to take them to your relative’s place? I mean what’s wrong with right here?”
    “Well, maybe. I’ll think about it.” He deliberately changed the subject. “He’s a Zionist, your daddy?”
    “Gosh, I don’t know. I never talked to him about it.”
    “All Americans are Zionist.” Abdul could not prevent some hint of indignation from showing in his voice.
    “I’m an American, and I’m not a Zionist,” said Roy mildly.
    “I mean all American Jews.”
    “Well?”
    “But you told me once that your mother was not Jewish. So even by the law of the Jewish rabbi, you are not Jewish.”
    “I don’t know about that.” said Roy. “I always thought of myself as Jewish, and that’s how my friends thought of me. As a matter of fact, up until the time I went to college, all my friends were Jewish.”
    “And here.”
    Roy laughed. “That’s right. In college and here, but this is college, too.”
    “That’s right.” Abdul glanced at his watch. “You’re going to meet your father at eight; you don’t have much time. You’d better get dressed.”
    Roy looked at his friend in surprise. “Why do I have to get dressed up to meet my own fattier? What’s the matter with the way I’m dressed now?”
    Abdul, who was twenty-six to Roy’s eighteen, shook his head indulgently. Roy was dressed in a blue denim Eisenhower jacket and in faded blue jeans, frayed at the bottoms. His sockless feet were encased in open sandals.
    Abdul could not understand why the American students chose to dress like poor workingmen. like fellahin, when they had the money to buy proper clothes. He had a smug satisfaction in the knowledge that he was properly dressed, even well dressed, in a tight-fitting suit of shiny black worsted with a shirt with a long, pointed collar and a wide colorful tie. Sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him. he rotated his shoes on their heels and surveyed them approvingly. They were Italian with large brass buckles and brilliantly shined.
    “You don’t understand, Roy. You will come into the King David where the women walk around the lobby in mink stoles even on hot days. Your daddy is probably planning to take you to the Grill for dinner. I’m not even sure that they will seat you without a tie, without socks. The hair, they will not like, but they can do nothing about it. But the jacket and no tie –”
    “Well, this is the way I dress.” retorted Rov, “and if they don’t like it, they can lump it. As far as my father is concerned, is it me he wants to see or a suit of clothes? And as for the headwaiter. a man can’t let himself be pushed around by those types. I’ll tell you something. Abdul, a man has to be himself. That’s the main thing.”
    Abdul shrugged. He didn’t want to argue with this young American whose friendship he had gone out of his way to cultivate. “Perhaps you are right. Roy. Come. I’ll walk you to the bus stop.”
    They stood in the lighted area of the bus stop until Roy had boarded, and then Abdul strode off into the darkness. Presently he heard footsteps behind him. He stopped. “Is that you. Mahmoud?” he asked in Arabic. “I thought I saw you behind us earlier. Are you spying on me?”
    The other fell in beside him. “I was not spying. Who you want to be friends with is your business so long as the rest of us don’t get involved.”
    “I know what I’m doing.” said Abdul shortly.
    “All right. I won’t argue with you, but if you think you are fooling the Jews by being friendly with one of them –”
    “Let me tell you something. Mahmoud. We are all watched because the Israelis know that we will do anything to defeat them. But they hope that by treating us